Save the Tradition, Serve the Community

Save the Rinks

Be sure to LIKE us on Facebook for the most up to date information and pictures of the rinks in action!

The Save the Rinks effort was formed in September 2011 after a group of
concerned community members learned that a revised plan for the Congdon Park
Elementary School renovation significantly decreased the available ice. A large
scale effort has been initiated to learn the facts and to distribute information
to all neighbors, students, and other community members. The most current renovation
drawing calls for completely eliminating all three rinks (this plan also eliminates summer use of space by soccer and softball associations). These rinks
provide a safe and structured environment for area youth and community members
to skate for free and be active during the long winter months. A steering committee has been
formed to work on being proactive on informing our community and initiating
discussions with Duluth Public Schools in any matters relating to this proposed
renovation.

Our mission is to work together with Duluth Public Schools to preserve almost
100 years of tradition providing ice and promoting youth activity during our
long winter months. We hope to inform and engage the community and be advocates
for maintaining this valuable resource in our community.

UPDATE 2/28/12 - The School Board vote on our rinks is tonight! There is still
time to send an email to Schoolboard@duluth.k12.mn.us and to the Superintendent at William.Gronseth@duluth.k12.mn.us

Please come and show your support to keep the Congdon Ice Rinks! 6:30 p.m. tonight 2/28 at 215 North First Avenue East

Please
join us tonight and help us fill the room with supporters. Come even
if you want to show "silent" support!!! If you wish to speak, arrive
15 minutes prior
to meeting to sign up for public comment - you will have up to 3
minutes to speak when they call your name. Encourage the board
to only vote in favor of the plan that offers the most recreational
space for our children instead of a parking lot.

Lets cross that finish line together! See you there!

UPDATE 2/7/12 -

OUTDOOR SPACE MEETING @ 4:00 p.m. Tues., Feb. 7, 2012 - TODAY

IMPORTANT MEETING to discuss the outdoor space areas of Congdon Park
Elementary. Meeting will be held at 4:00 p.m. TODAY at the school with
school district and City of Duluth officials. PLEASE COME to show your
support of keeping the ice rinks!

UPDATE 2/1/12 -

Your e-mails, letters and calls have been working.The current proposed plans do have enough space for CPH to survive – 2 boarded rinks (one large, one small) and a pleasure rink.However,
it is important to note that our existence is contingent upon two
variances (granted by the City), fundraising money for a new warming house/community building and that the district has the money to fund retaining walls.While this is a step in
the right direction – a larger goal of ours is to SAVE the district
money and SAVE CPH money by keeping the current warming house/community
building and our current outdoor space as it is.Let us come together to collectively and creatively come up with where to put more parking space.We
urge the district and board not to act in haste – but to re-examine the
values that the community is putting on the outdoor space – and make
this a win-win situation for everyone.

Please continue to put the pressure on the school board.As a result of not bringing us to the table until the 11th hour we are faced with a HUGE time crunch.Only a growing amount of public pressure will be able to keep them going back to the drawing board.We thank you in advance for all of your hard work and persistence!

What can I do to help?We need as much community support as we can for this campaign. We will continue to update this site as information becomes available and also send out email updates to anyone who requests to be on our email distribution list.

Superintendent Bill Gronseth, William.Gronseth@duluth.k12.mn.usCongdon Principal Kathi Kusch Marshall, Kathi.Marshall@duluth.k12.mn.usMayor Don Ness, dness@duluthmn.gov3. Attend the next school board meeting at 215 North First Avenue East (arrive 15 minutes prior to meeting to sign up for public comment - you will have up to 3 minutes to speak when they call your name) and encourage them to vote in favor of the ice rinks and warming shack to stay. Tell them you want to keep the ice rinks, warming shack, softball and soccer fields. We are not asking for anything new, we simply do not want to lose the precious space we currently enjoy.

Copy and paste this letter in your email and forward to
your friends, neighbors and other community members that you believe
would be supportive of our efforts to 'save the rinks'.

September 2011

Friends of Congdon Park Skating Rinks:

We want to take this
opportunity to share with the community a concern we have with the proposed
remodeling of Congdon Park elementary school. Over the past year, there
have been several renderings of the site plan. The most recent site plan
(as of 9/12/11) does not include enough space for Congdon Park Hockey (CPH) to
run a successful youth hockey program. This is important to you as
Congdon Park community members, neighbors and parents if you have ever used any
of the rinks. Congdon Park elementary students utilize all three rinks
all winter for an hour each week during class. The Kid Connection after school
program uses the rinks as a wonderful after school activity. Many
neighbors and community members come out and skate on the pleasure rink and
enjoy the warmth of our shack all winter long! These rinks are flooded,
maintained, and staffed by CPH volunteers. Without the volunteer hours
and equipment CPH provides to the community, your rinks will cease to exist.

The most current site
plan does include space for two boarded hockey rinks, a nice warming shack and
Zamboni garage and for that we thank the school district and school board.
While this is most definitely a step in the right direction (from the
previous plan dated June 2011), we would like to see an improved layout of the
rinks and of course a pleasure rink. We feel the pleasure rink is an
amazing asset to our school and neighboring community. Almost every
evening and weekend the pleasure rink is filled with toddlers learning to
skate, school age children being active with their families and adults out for
some enjoyable exercise.

To ensure progress
continues to be made and this invaluable resource remains in our community, a
grass roots group, called ‘Save the Rinks’ has been established to find an
alternative solution to the current proposed site plan (as of 9/12/11).
We are currently gathering information, meeting with school district officials
and board members to draw attention to our needs and build our case for keeping
all three rinks. Discussions are still being had and drawings are still
being drawn – nothing is in stone yet.

We believe that we
can work together with the school district to come up with a solution where all
parties are satisfied. Let’s try to blend the tradition of the past with
the needs of the future. The skating rinks at Congdon and CPH have been
in existence since 1924 and we plan to bring it forward as the best community
rink in Duluth for another 100 years!

We wish to thank all
of the families, friends, neighbors and community members who already have and
those that will offer support and encouragement to our group. As we move
forward, we hope that you will consider taking an active role to ‘Save our
Rinks’. We ask that you forward this message to help us spread the
word. Please see our newly developed website for ways you can get
involved at https://sites.google.com/site/savetherink/
and please don’t hesitate to contact
either one of us.

Past updatesUPDATE 1/17/12 - NEW INFORMATION HAS BEEN BROUGHT TO
OUR ATTENTION IN THE PAST 12 HOURS. Save the Rinks is now recommending
to DELAY THE FULL CONGDON RENOVATION SITE PLAN for 30 days. The
district is proposing to build a new size gym which was never in the
original design team recommendation. Our neighborhood already has 2
full size gyms at the middle school and new high school. We do not see
the need for this in an elementary school. This gym is driving the
requirement for a larger number of parking spaces. It also changed the
design and location of the school entrance that will not allow our rinks
to exist. WE OPPOSE THE FULL DESIGN PLAN in its current state. PLEASE
CALL AND/OR EMAIL THE SCHOOL BOARD to tell them your concerns. YOUR
VOICE COUNTS! The school board meeting is tonight at 6:30...sign up to
speak at 6:15 p.m.

UPDATE 1/15/12 - Thank
you to EACH AND EVERY ONE of you who came out to support the Congdon
Park Ice Rinks tonight. We packed the house! We would also like to thank
the school board members who attended and listened to our community at
the meeting. We would also like to thank Interim Superintendent Bill Gronseth and Greg
Repensky from Johnson Controls.

We at Save the Rinks need YOU to let your elected school board officials know you
want them to approve the building - not the outdoor space on Tuesday.
If that is the outcome of the vote, we did receive commitment tonight
from the school district to have a seat and a voice at the table in the
final planning discussions for the outdoor space.

We also
presented the school board members (as well as the district officials at
the meeting) a copy of the over 1,000 signatures we have already
received on our online petition! Thank you for you support - you are
making a difference!

UPDATE
1/11/12 - The newest plan (dated 1/9/12) includes no plans to keeps the
ice rinks. We must CONVINCE THE SCHOOL BOARD to VOTE NO to the entire
outdoor space/parking portion of the site plan at their meeting on
Tuesday, 1/17/12. Please join us and and tell your elected school board
that we do not want a parking lot. We want the ice rinks, warming
shack and to keep this space available for summer softball and soccer.
This is a multi-use recreation space that the school board is choosing
to cover with a parking lot! TAKE A STAND NOW!

Testimonials~Please send us an email and tell us what the Congdon Park skating rinks mean to you~

"32 Years ago my dad laced up my first pair of skates and sent me out on the best ice in Minnesota. My lifelong love of skating started with those single steps on an outdoor rink. Now, after 16 years of instructing figure skating in Duluth, I am lacing up my own kids' skates as they eagerly make their journey out on the ice. Our community is bound to the love of being outdoors in the elements whether we are pursuing our passions in attempt to succeed at the highest level of skating or just taking the opportunity to enjoy the sport at a recreational level. More importantly, our youth have the opportunity to try on a pair of skates and be an active participant in this community. A strong foundation for youth skating has been established through the efforts of many generations of Congdon Hockey families, and with hope, for many more years to come."

"We love Congdon hockey. Having only lived here for a few years it has
become part of our life and the lives of our boys. As a family, we take
pride in the rink and our winter would sure be dull without it. I so
love to watch my kids walk down the street with their sticks and skates
hung over their shoulders for an afternoon of pickup games. As a mom, I
love working concessions with a bunch of neighborhood kids with sweaty
heads asking for popsicles in the middle of January. All this said,
Save the Rink has our full support."-the Hoeksema family, Congdon neighbors"We
are a family of the Congdon Park neighborhood who use the
school's recreation facilities all year long. With upcoming changes
planned for the school, we hope to see the ice rinks and warming house
are maintained as a place for all the community to enjoy."-Anna & Brad Anderson

"Our
family moved to Duluth from Mid-Michigan two years ago. Our twin boys
started kindergarten at Congdon and are currently in second grade. Our
family finds the rinks to be one of the greatest assets not only of the
school but of living in Duluth. The rinks are one of the things we
always brag about to relatives and friends who don't live in Duluth! Neither
of our boys play hockey but we love the fact that in the winter our
boys get a chance to go outside with their classes and get some ice
time. We also appreciate equally that during the evenings either my
husband or I can take the boys out on our own due to the
graciousness of the hockey families to work the warming house and keep
it open for open skating. It is very convenient for our family and we
love being able to gather some skates and be on the ice in a matter of
minutes. I know that these times will be some of our fondest memories
of winters in Duluth and hopefully also our sons when they look back. I
urge you to do what you can to support keeping the rinks at Congdon so
that all families so not only our family but other families in Duluth
can enjoy the rink for years to come."

-Teresa Hill

"I learned how to skate on
outdoor rinks when I was 5 years old and have many great memories of
spending long days and nights there with friends and family. I was
fortunate that I could walk down the street with my stick and skates
over my shoulder and within 5 minutes, could be participating in a game
of tag or tennis ball hockey. That was the beauty of the outdoor rinks:
there was a game or activity available for everyone. Whether you were
just learning to skate or you were on your way to being a professional
hockey player, the outdoor rinks gave you the opportunity to have fun
while spending time together as a community. I owe a lot of my
successful, 15 year professional hockey career, to the endless hours
spent skating and playing hockey on the outdoor rinks down the street
from my childhood home."

-Brett Hauer - former UMD Bulldog, US Olympic team member and NHL player and Congdon neighbor

"Thank you for your efforts in preserving the great tradition at Congdon.
My family has a special bind there. My father in law coached his son
there for several years while my wife (his sister) skated with her friends
on the pleasure rink. Tradition has carried on as I coached my daughter while her sisters skated on the pleasure
rink. I'm sure there are many more stories such as these and can only
hope they find a way to keep the rinks as they currently sit. Having
moved here from outside Duluth I've come to realize what a true
treasure these local rinks are. We are so truly fortunate to have them.
Please continue to stand up for this cause. It is well worth it!"-Kraig Karakas & Anissa (Zuber) Karakas and family

"Simply
put, my childhood is synonymous with Congdon Park hockey. The
opportunity to participate in such a unique, community-supported program
was one of the great experiences of my youth – and something that has
always anchored me to Duluth. The rink was - and still is - a gathering
place, not just for hockey players, but for families, friends and
neighbors. My grandfather stood in those snowbanks watching my squirt
games, my father helped flood that rink…and it’s a tradition I want to
pass on to my three kids."

-Philip Vallie

"Last year it was snowing so hard that the rink attendant couldn't keep up. Another parent came down with his 4 wheeler and plowed a spot. My kids and his kids, and the children of another friend came down and skated under the falling snow. It didn't take ten
minutes before the rink was full of neighborhood kids skating, laughing,
playing tag, and enjoying the winter together."

-Quentin Roth

"Having grown up in a middle
class family in an upper class town, we couldn't afford ski passes or
snowmobiles. What we could afford was to go skating at Congdon. It
was a great family activity in the winter when there wasn't much else to
do outside. It was also a safe place to go with friends as a kid. Dad
gave me a few bucks for a snack and off we'd go for tons of laughs and
fun, while getting some exercise outdoors. It would be tragic if this
neighborhood and city gem was gone. Now, living in a place where
outdoor ice rinks don't/can't exist I appreciate it even more and truly
hope to take my son there someday. I never felt judged for having less
money than my classmates at Congdon rink, as I did at other places. We
were just a bunch of kids skating around having fun. That is priceless."

-Joanna Johnson

"I moved here 6 years ago from the Twin Cities. Both my son and daughter
learned to skate on these rinks. We have always considered the fact
that our children skate during school a valuable asset and treasured
part of attending Congdon Park Elementary and living half a block away. Neither my husband or I have
skating in our background however, and I truly believe it is because of
the rinks at Congdon, my daughter figure skates competitively and now
decided to play hockey at age 11. My son has played hockey for 3 years
now and loves the sport. They both ask every day if we will take them
skating after school, on weekends and school breaks. They will skate
for hours with their friends instead of begging to watch TV, play on the
computer, play Wii, DS and all the other electronic devices that they
enjoy but keep them inactive during the long winters. These rinks are
an asset to the school, neighbors and community and in my opinion, Congdon has
the best pleasure rink Duluth has to offer!"-Tracie Smith

"I skated there from the time
we moved to Duluth in 1952 until I went away to college...1964. I was
thrilled to have my grandchildren be part of the hockey program there.
It touched my heart to go to my four hockey playing grandkids games in the
same place where I watched my friends play when I was in grade school. I
have such fond memories of the smell of the warming house. It had a big
space heater in the middle and always smelled like wet wool as we kids
tossed our mittens on it to dry them out when we came in. At that time,
in the olden days, there were no hockey teams that accepted girls, so we
perched on the snow banks to watch the boys play. We played Pom Pom
Pull Away and Crack the Whip on the pleasure rink for hours. The whole
neighborhood walked down Branch Street together to skate, and didn't
have to come home until the street lights came on. Then we would walk
home together, singing silly songs and having such a good time. It seems
particularly sad, with all the money spent on remodeling East and
Ordean that the district couldn't have saved enough money to create a
parking lot across the street and save the skating rinks that are so
rich in memories and history. With the constant reports of our obese
children and kids who never go outside to play, taking away a place
where they get excellent exercise and have fun doing it seems criminal.
Can't we find someway to save the rinks and the hockey programs at
Congdon Park?

-Peg Johnson

Who do I contact for more information?Sara
Vallie—saravallie@hotmail.comTracie
Smith—mtmtsmith@yahoo.comCo-founders, Save the Rinkssavetherinks@charter.netFind us on
Facebook—Save the Rinks